This invention relates to a barge unloading system and more particularly to an improvement over the barge unloading system of U.S. Pat. No. 3,373,883, assigned to the assignee of the present invention. More specifically, the present invention relates to an improvement in a barge unloading system for unloading dry, bulk particulate material from a barge or other container into an intermediate holding container or pressure vessel, commonly called a reloader, and thereafter into a storage container such as a silo.
In the handling of dry, bulk particulate material such as cement powder, grain, fertilizer or the like it is known that such material may be fluidized when mixed with a pressurized gas such as air and, thereafter, the fluidized material may be easily conveyed as if it were a fluid.
The prior patent assigned to Dundee Cement Company and referred to above discloses a system for unloading a barge by a vacuum technique, with the contents being temporarily stored in a pressure vessel or reloader and thereafter blowing the particulate material from the holding tank into a more permanent storage container such as a silo. As disclosed in said patent, a plurality of reloaders are provided and while one reloader is being loaded with particulate material from the barge, the other reloader is being emptied by transferring the particulate material into the silo.
In the use of such a system, it has been noted that it takes approximately three times as long to empty the reloader as it takes to initially load it. I have discovered that the cause of this problem is that when the particulate material is loaded into the reloader, the particulate material is compacted or compressed by virtue of the vacuum system.
Thus the present invention is directed to an improved unloading system which substantially reduces if not eliminates the problem of compacting of the dry particulate material and thus substantially reduces the time necessary to unload the reloader without any substantial decrease in its capacity.